The electrical connecting terminal of prior art, from which the invention derives, is a multistory series terminal, as described, for example in the catalogue “Series Terminals Clipline 2002”, from Phoenix Contact, in the left column on page 44. The multistory terminal of prior art has a connecting terminal housing of plastic in which bus bars with conductor connections connected on the end side are mounted in multistory fashion one above the other. The conductor connections are designed as sockets for receiving conductors, which sockets may be firmly clamped by screw connections provided. Housing openings, arranged above these screw connections, are provided on the narrow side of the terminal housing for inserting and fixing electrical conductors.
The lower bus bar and the upper bus bar running above it, with their conductor connections, are arranged laterally offset to each other in the longitudinal direction of the bus bars.
A conductor inserted in the upper conductor connection therefore runs laterally offset to the screw connection of the conductor connection arranged below it. The advantage of this is that the lower screw connections are always freely accessible.
However, the offsetting of the bus bars of the terminal arranged one above the other prevents potential connectors of standard rectilinear design from being used for the electrical connection between the bus bars.